A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Book of Mormon Studies Association conference in Logan, Utah. There were some fascinating presentations, and I thought I would share a recap of the ones that I was able to attend.

On Friday, October 9, the opening session was a series of oral book reviews. I think my favorite moment came from Liz Fenton, who was reviewing The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound, and said something along the lines of “this book will be of interest, particularly if you like nineteenth-century gossip. Especially if you love nineteenth-century gossip about men named Orson.” From the parts I caught, the reviews were largely positive, with Catie Nielsen talking about how Rosalynde F. Welch and Adam S. Miller have done a fantastic job writing devotional literature for a lay audience with a scholarly background in Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon. 

The next session I attended was Jenny Champoux and Paul Reeve presenting on some images of scenes from the Book of Mormon that were created in 1897. The images were created to be used with flipcharts and cards to teach children about the Book of Mormon and highlight the key points of the stories. But by today’s cultural sensitivities, they were highly problematic, both in how the images portrayed race and the messages the associated catechisms conveyed. But Champoux and Reeve shared a lot of fascinating and well-done work around these images. They placed them in context, both in the artistic traditions Latter-day Saints inherited from their Euro-American background and the transitional era in which Latter-day Saints found themselves. They have been working on a publication, so they asked us to not share too much information or images of it, so I’ll leave it in their hands to get that out there.

After that session, we met in the choir room of the institute building for a panel focused on music and the Book of Mormon. Ruth Eldredge talked about the use of sound and music in the Book of Mormon, noting that it is rare, which may be partly due to Nephi taking a view opposed to music. Christian Asplund and Sharon Harris performed a series of short songs that Asplund had written using texts from the Book of Mormon in the style of Lieders, and Peter McMurray shared a recording of “the Ballad of Shiz,” which he had performed with a band he named the Gadianton Robbers the day before, reciting the story of Coriantumr cutting off Shiz’s head in a death metal style. It was grotesque and interesting at the same time.

That afternoon, I attended a session with Robin Jensen and Richard Saunders. Jensen was focused on how the earliest revelations that we have on record describe Book of Mormon translation. A couple of interesting insights were that he suggested that Doctrine and Covenants 7 (which is a translation of a short text about John the Beloved) might actually be the translation that Oliver Cowdery was able to accomplish before his efforts failed, given its positioning between revelations about Cowdery’s translation efforts, both chronologically and physically on the paper the documents were first recorded on. He also looked at the revelation for Hyrum Smith and noted that since it promised him a gift “if thou wilt desire of me in faith, with an honest heart, believing in the power of Jesus Christ, or in my power which speaketh unto thee; for, behold, it is I that speak; behold, I am the light which shineth in darkness, and by my power I give these words unto thee” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:10–11), that Hyrum may have been more focused on a translation model of some sort of interaction with Christ as the way the Book of Mormon was translated. Saunders had some interesting information about the eight witnesses.

The other afternoon session was more philosophical and theological in focus. Joseph Spencer talked about the Book of Mormon as an example of Katechon. The term refers to an unseen force, power, or figure that delays the full manifestation of the Antichrist and the arrival of the apocalypse. His idea was that the Nephites were slated for destruction based on sinfulness from early on in the Book of Mormon history (which explains the way the Small Plates books talk about its imminence), but the repeated revivals of the Christian gospel throughout Mosiah, Alma, and Helaman kept forestalling that destruction to create space for the successful missionary work among the Lamanites over those same sections of the Book of Mormon. Steven Peck took a philosophical approach to time and the idea that God doesn’t exist outside of time, viewing it all from beginning to end, but that time is constantly being created and is shaped by the impressions of the past, drawing on the thoughts of Henri Bergson. 

Avi Steinberg closed out the day with a presentation in which he reflected on writing about the Book of Mormon and working on a translation of the Bible, including a few notes about his experiences as an activist in Israel. He’s very passionate, and it was interesting to hear his thoughts.

The next day, I attended a session where Michael Austin and Rachel Helps talked about the Book of Mormon in early Latter-day Saint poetry and in literature from around the turn of the twentieth century. It was very interesting to see the examples they had found, such as some poetry from the 1840s that John Taylor likely wrote, a play Susa Gates wrote and directed for young women in the Church to teach a Book of Mormon story, and a fictional novel based on the Zeniff colony in the Book of Mormon. Much like the images from the day before, they were not culturally sensitive by today’s standards, but still provide a fascinating glimpse into how Latter-day Saints understood and spoke about the Book of Mormon at those times.

A plenary session followed, focusing on translation. Tod Harris talked about philosophies of translation and how the Church approaches translating the Book of Mormon and other scriptures in the context of the field of biblical translation. Jim Richards spoke about a modern paraphrase of the Book of Mormon he’s working on. His goal is to capture what the words in the Book of Mormon would have meant in 1830 and render that in modern English while reducing unnecessary repetition. (I’m intrigued and look forward to hearing more about this project.) John Bringhurst talked about his experiences translating the Book of Mormon to Q’eqchi’ (or at least one of the Mayan languages; I’m not positive it’s that one) multiple times. Both Bringhurst and Richards related that sometime around 2010, the First Presidency issued instructions to the translation department to focus more on literal translations rather than idiomatic translation, which surprised them at first, but they have had good experiences with taking that approach and seeing their reception among Latter-day Saints. 

In the afternoon, I attended a session where Margaret Olsen Hemming discussed the role of land in Latter-day Saint theology, covering what it means to Joseph Smith, to the Book of Mormon, and to modern Latter-day Saints, with an emphasis on Latinx and Native American members. Kimberly Matheson discussed the role of prisons in Book of Mormon narratives, using Helaman 5 as the focal point. There was a lot of rich information there that I’m struggling to recall (my own presentation was coming up soon, so my mind was a little distracted). 

I presented in the second afternoon session, talking about the role the Book of Mormon played in the life of Zerah Pulsipher (the man I published a biography about earlier this year), trying to add some nuance to the claims of earlier scholars that the early Latter-day Saints didn’t really read the Book of Mormon (the link will take you to a version of my paper). Janiece Johnson presented on a similar topic, addressing the same earlier scholarship about Book of Mormon use in the early days of the Church, but blew mine out of the water with the depth and intensity of her project. She demonstrated pretty clearly that while they may not have explicitly cited the Book of Mormon frequently, they were immersed in the language of the Book of Mormon and constantly wove it into their writings. She has a book she’s working on, so I’ll let that share the details whenever it comes out, but I suspect it will have an impact on changing the narrative about how early Latter-day Saints used the Book of Mormon. 

The concluding session was a lecture by Elise Boxer on “the Book of Mormon, Doctrine of Discovery, and Federal Indian Policy.” I’ve talked about her a few times this year, and she has been getting a lot of attention through awards for her book and being the keynote speaker at both the Mormon History Association and BOMSA conferences, but there is a reason for that. She can bring Indigenous perspectives to bear on the effects of the Book of Mormon and Mormonism on how Indigenous peoples in the United States are viewed and treated by Latter-day Saints, providing an intellectual framework for scholars. I highly respect her and her efforts, even though I don’t fully agree with her, and I appreciate her remarks.